Nerdlight
by YlvaThorgalsdottir
Summary: Bella focuses on school.
1. Day 1

After several attempts I have determined that I suck at writing romance. I just never get it to go anywhere. So here's a real school-focused Bella.

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Potential spoilers for the books Bella reads in class.

* * *

**Day 1**

"English - Government - Trig - Spanish - (lunch) - Biology (II) - Gym" read my itinerary on my first day in Forks high school. Building 3 shouldn't be too hard to find.

On my way there I gained a friend in Mike, a boy who didn't seem particularly interested in Shakespeare. That was okay, I thought. There's all kinds of people.

The teacher handed me the required reading list. I was simultaneously thrilled and dismayed that I had already read most of the books. On the one hand, I'd have to work out what new books to read for myself. On the other, I got to work in-depth on Brontë, maybe compare Emily to Anne or Charlotte. It was gonna be fun.

Apparently everyone had just finished _Romeo and Juliet_ and we were supposed to discuss it. The teacher, whose name I'd already forgotten, told me I could sit it out, but I told him I'd read the play twice in December. In the end, I and a girl with straight brown hair were the only serious participants, disagreeing about whether the two were in love, in lust, or in pure defiance of their parents and societal rules.

"But Capulet didn't hate on Romeo when he snuck into the party."

"Romeo wasn't as in love with Juliet as with his own ability to improvise poetry."

"He called her the sun. The light of his life."

"I think she only married him so she wouldn't have to marry Paris."

"Girls," said the teacher – Mr. Mason, I remembered, and drew a brick in the margin of my English notebook – "This is not the debate team."

"There's a debate team?" I was curious. It seemed like such a small school.

The bell rang, and we gathered our books. The other girl, the Shakespeare fan, joined me part of the way. She had History, I had Government. We agreed to get together and discuss literature sometime. I knew that usually, "sometime" meant "never", but I was hopeful for once. I fished my Government notebook out of my bag and drew a person with wings in one of the margins, hoping it would help me remember her name. I was good with faces, it was names I had trouble with. Ironic, since I mostly lived in books, where names were the primary identifier of people. Maybe I should start thinking of people as characters.

The next thing I drew in my notebook was diagrams illustrating parts of American government. To remember the teacher's name I drew the silhouette of Missouri, hoping it would do the trick. Mr. Jefferson spoke fast, so I scribled notes in Ford's shorthand, not for the first time wondering if I shouldn't learn stenography instead. At the end he mentioned that we would discuss Communism next, so I turned the leaf and wrote "Communism" on the top of the blank page. Who knew, maybe I'd have time for preliminary reading.

The class after that was Trigonometry. Mike was in that class, but he was already seated beside someone – yet another brunette, at least I wasn't going to stand out – so I sat down in the seat Mr. Varner pointed me to, next to an Asian-American who introduced himself as Eric. Pondering how to illustrate the teacher's name visually, I opened my only grid-lines notebook, wrote the date "Jan 24 '05" on top of the page since the subject wasn't divided into headline-able parts anyway, and started drawing triangles.

Eric peered curiously at my notes, probably not expecting me to be good at math. It was okay, I wasn't particularly good at math, but it had nothing to do with my gender or my hair color or anything like that. It was just the way it was taught was so minck-numbingly boring that I had to make art with it to make it seem relevant to me.

"Why'd you draw the Warner Bros. logo?" he whispered.

"I'm just a fan," I whispered back.

Circles with lines and angles with labels. I tried to think of a way to work it out for myself, which naturally led me to try to think of a way to calculate pi. It had something to do with hexagons, or octagons, and then you superimposed another hexagon or octagon, but tilted so that all the sides where cut in half by the new corners… I forgot to listen to the teacher over and over again, but he spoke slowly and repeated himself a lot, so it wasn't that hard to keep up. I wrote some keywords between the drawings. It ended up looking a bit Dadaist.

In Spanish I ended up next to the brunette Mike had sat next to in Trig. Her name was Jessica. I told her it was a Shakespearean name, specifically invented for the character in _The Merchant of Venice_, mostly in the hopes of remembering it myself. There had been two Jessicas in my class in Phoenix – possibly more, there had been a lot of classes and a lot of exchange and I hadn't been able to keep track – and I hoped to avoid the awkwardness of mumbling to myself about Shylock this time. I reminded myself there was also a Jessica in Dune.

"Nice drawing of Goofey," said Jessica.

"Thank you," I replied.

Spanish was mostly grammar. It made me sad, because the language could be so much more beautiful than that. Between grammatic mindmaps I wrote down a resolve to read some untranslated Isabel Allende.

At lunch I sat with Jessica, who turned out to also be friends with Angela from English, and of course Mike, and Eric. There was also a blonde girl named Lauren who joined us, and an African-American who introduced himself as Tyler. He said he had seen me in English. I apologized and told him my fascination with the subject had kept me from noticing most of the other students.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you," Jessica told me.

Great, another name to remember. I glanced up from my food and saw a group of eerily pale people at a table across the cafeteria. One of them, a gangly boy with hair the color of bronze, was squinting in the direction of our table, like he was concentrating.

"Maybe he reads too much." I dreaded the day I would need glasses for myopia, but I simply could not give up reading. I ate the rice cakes I'd brought from home, drank a bit of water, and told everyone I was going to Biology ahead of time to make sure I found the right building. Mike offered to accompany me with his mouth full, but I told him to finish his meal and that I would see him later.

It took me a while to find the right building. Would have been faster if I had waited and let Mike show me, really, but there was something unsettling about Edward Cullen. Not only could I remember his name perfectly after hearing it just once, there was something else as well.

Someone grabbed my jacket sleeve.

"There you are! It's this way." Mike, helpful as always. He held onto my sleeve a little longer than was strictly comfortable.

When we walked into class, everyone was already seated. Mike sat down next to some other student, but my mental person-registry was full for the day, so I didn't even try to remember the guy's hair color for future reference.

I turned around to look for an unclaimed seat and saw Edward glaring at me. It startled me, but he was probably only just realizing that he wouldn't have that table to himself anymore, as the only free seat was right next to him. I sat down and pulled up my last new unused notebook. I figured I wouldn't need one in Gym. To remember the teacher's name I drew a banner around the master headline "Biology II" on the first page.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edward still scowling at me. A case to report for sure. I wasn't the police chief's daughter for nothing.

Mr. Banner talked about plant cells. I drew a leaf and made a mindmap around it. Edward wasn't taking notes. He seemed to be holding his breath. I kept drawing flowers and writing stuff around them, not wanting to wonder what his problem was.

I'd probably have to consult my notebooks from Phoenix, the one I had brought anyway. It had gotten to be quite a few, roughly one per subject per semester since about eighth grade, when I had admire Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, but quickly found that her methods were inefficient, and that memorizing textbooks verbatim is not the same as learning. Getting stuck in reveries turned out to be impossible while sitting next to Edward. My attention kept being drawn back to him. Near the end of the class I realized that Lauren was sitting two tables behind us.

I really really _really_ didn't want to go to Gym after that, but Mike accompanied me to the girls' locker. He seemed confused about what I had done to make Edward so angry. I truthfully told him I didn't know.

Volley ball could have been fun if it weren't for the balls flying at you. I didn't mind moving, walking and even running could be wonderful, but sports? Too much. I was glad when it was over.

I caught up with Lauren in the parking lot and asked her to switch lab partners in Biology. She agreed without much fuss. She didn't seem particularly interested either way. In the administrations office I found that Edward was trying to solve the problem as well, by switching electives instead of partners. Unfortunately, Physics classes are always full, and the deadline was past anyway. He didn't notice me, so I just went up and delivered my itinerary and left. No point reporting him now.

On my way home I bought groceries and a small notebook, figuring I'd been wrong about Gym. There were always room for _some_ notes. There was fairly cheap garlic bread, which I loved, and fish, which at least were healthy. I had forgotten how much seafood would be available so near the coast. When I got home I did some vacuuming while the fish cooked, ate with Charlie when he got home from work, and did homework while he watched football. I wrote down some unfamiliar terms in my new Gym notebook to look up later. Renée never watched any kind of sports on tv, despite marrying a baseball player. I had a separate spiral notebook with the word "ESSAYS" on the front cover in big, friendly letters. As friendly as I could make them, anyway. In it, under the heading "Wuthering Heights", I wrote down a few keywords about what I remembered of the novel and a brief outline of an essay about its themes. I tried to read a Spanish translation of Pride and Prejudice that I found online until I was too tired to keep staring at the screen and went to bed. I fell asleep right away.


	2. Week 1

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Day 2**

The next day was better in some ways, and worse in others. It kind of had to be, since I had exactly one point of comparison.

I got up, made my bed, showered, vacuumed my room, cleaned the sink and mirror in both bathrooms, ate oatmeal with flax seeds for breakfast, made sure I had all my notebooks and textbooks, resolved to leave the Biology and Gym stuff in the car since I didn't need it until after lunch, thought about how if I lived in Europe where they only had each subject like once a week I could walk to school, and drove to school.

Turned out I was early, so I read _Northanger Abbey_ in my car for fifteen minutes before going to class. Would Catherine ever get out of Bath. I got that it was didactic, but how great can one place be for your lifestyle anyway.

In English we were starting to read _Wuthering Heights_. When Mr. (steal glance at notebook) Mason asked if I had read it I replied that I had, before realizing that he may have meant it sarcastically.

As had become clear since I started high school, it was not enough to read a lot of novels, you also had to read author biographies _and_ the books the authors liked to read to properly understand them. Apparently there was a theory that Emily Brontë had been autistic. Her pen name had been Ellis Bell. I ignored everone making it a point to look at me when Mr. Mason said that, and instead drew a Bell in my Emily mindmap. Born July 30 (same day as Neville Longbottom) in 1818 (only repeating number-year that century) in Yorkshire (where the novel was set). Died in the same Shire, aged thirty (round number) after nine months of marital bliss, one week after brother… I included as much detail as possible, certain that I would forget a good deal of it by next class, but if you can only retain 10% why not make that tenth as big as possible?

Mike stared at me as though he didn't quite recognize me after class. Maybe I had been too interested in Emily Brontë for his taste, but if it was a problem for him it was by definition his problem.

Government was the same fast-paced lecturing as yesterday. I got down all the names of the Supreme Court Justices and wrote "bio?" next to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was probably about time I started reading more biographies of real people instead of fictional ones. Jane Eyre was plenty interesting, but was she a Justice who made decisions that could affect my life? Not really.

Trig was boring. Poor Mr. Varner, he tried to interest students in his subject, but not many seemed to care. He was talking about tan lines. Eric jokingly asked me if I had any, pointing to my too pale skin. I pulled up my t-shirt sleeve to show him that I was even paler under it. He mouthed "Wow" and let it lie. I wrote down that there was probably an interesting link between Trig and sports.

Mrs. Goff wanted to look at my notes in Spanish, but all I did was write phrases in spidermaps with extra branches for the transitive verbs. I had written down a list of words to look up from yesterday's reading of _Orgullo y Prejudicio_, which I had yet to look up. Mrs. Goff even managed to make that dull by ordering me to look them up in that class, looking mighty proud of herself. I did it on a separate sheet of paper, using a borrowed dictionary, turned it in at the end of the class and tried to be as polite as possible. It wasn't her fault.

Lunch. I surprised myself by feeling nervous, but when I got there I couldn't see Edward anywhere. Jessica noticed me looking at his siblings. She told me a story about how they were all foster kids, that three came from the husband's family and two from the wife's family, and that the four who were there were "like, _together_ together". It was an interesting piece of gossip, but it didn't ring true for some reason. The Hales, who were supposedly twins, didn't even look that related. In some ways the brother looked much older than his twin sister. They weren't even the same type of blond. I pointed this out to Jessica, who shrugged it off as "Rosalie probably bleaches". I kept staring at them until, suddenly, Jasper turned his gaze toward me. It was not an unfriendly look, it simply seemed to communicate that would I kindly mind my own business. I quickly looked down and tried to swallow my rye bread, and ended up washing it down with most of my water.

I told Lauren it was okay if she wanted to keep her lab partner, since Edward wasn't there. I didn't really need a lab partner, I assured her. She shrugged, then shot me a glare over her shoulder as she walked to her old table. It was still all about plant cells. i drew one on a sticky note and labeled it. Then I drew a small, hand-held microscope to remind me in case I came into any money anytime soon. It would be so interesting to see for myself.

Gym. volley ball. I tried jogging in place to work up the sweat Coach Clapp wanted us to. Supposedly it's healthy. I tried to think about the ball as nothing more intimidating that a geometrical shape, and how it moved in terms of angles, but it didn't make me any better at it.

Went home, cooked, cleaned, did Trig exercises, read a few more chapters of Spanish Jane Austen.

**Day 3**

Still no Edward. Still plenty of time to read, listen to the Kate Bush song, skim _Wuthering Heights_ for themes or metaphors. I got a book at the school library titled "Introduction to law" and skimmed it between classes. I drew triangle partied in my Trig notebook and made a concept map about tangent lines. I hoped to put it all together someday. When I returned the intro to law, I found a Spanish version of _The House of the Spirits,_ _La Casa de los Espiritus. _It might be good to only read boons I had already read until I mastered the language.

Lunch had been leftover steamed vegetables from last night's dinner and water. Jessica continued her story about the Cullens by telling me about Alice and Emmett, who at least resembled each other slightly, but not in a way that you'd look at them and think "family". Their facial features were so different.

Biology and Gym passed. I felt myself slipping back into old habits of daydreaming instead of paying attention to the teacher. I tried, and there were notes, but not as meticulous as two days ago. I found myself reading the textbook to get through all of it faster. To be able to concentrate on the flow of information, there had to be a flow of information. And apparently Edward felt he didn't even need attendance to learn the subject.

Charlie worked late, so I was lying on the couch reading when he came home. I cooked spaggetti. I was no chef, but at least he wouldn't starve.

**Day 4**

Thursday. There was no getting me away from _Northanger Abbey_ this close to the end of the novel. The essay wasn't due until tomorrow. Cotangents. Apparently Rosa is a mermaid. Telling Jessica that earned me a glance from Rosalie, as if she could hear me from across the room. Her boyfriend chuckled, so maybe they were just talking about me. In Biology I put stickies over all the diagrams in my textbook and drew them. I would test myself on labelling them later.

The local library had a few biographies of Presidents, but none about Supreme Court Justices. I borrowed a book about stretching.

At home I cooked dinner for my late father and ate some of it while it was still hot. When he came home half an hour later, I wondered out loud if I should start making salads since they were supposed to be served cold.

"Don't you dare," he mumbled around a mouthful of chicken. On the subject of whether I had made any friends I listed the people I ate lunch with. ("That's nice.") I casually mentioned the Cullens and that Edward had been missing the last three days. ("His father is a doctor, so he probably knows what to do.") That was the longest conversation we had had that week.

**Day 5**

Finally Friday. Weekends were for reading whatever I wanted to. Fridays were for preparing for that.

I read my essay through looking for typos. Looked over my notes for Government. Not even Trig could get me down today. I tried looking through my math textbook and summarizing each chapter on a sticky note, but Mr. Varner looked so offended I went back to drawing triangles and circles in my notebook. In Spanish, Mrs. Goff seemed to have taken up teaching phrases instead of individual words.

I went to the school library before heading to the Cafeteria. I hadn't finished _Casa de los Espiritus_ yet, but I wanted to look for other interesting books. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and it took me a moment to recognize Alice Cullen. Up close, you got the impression that she was even paler, her skin a bit too smooth.

"I have noticed that you have taken an interest in our family," she smiled brightly.

"Um, I'm sorry? I'm new here, and I just," I stammered, flustered.

"Don't mention it." She flashed a grin, then turned around and danced away.

I wasn't sure what to make of that, but I went to the Cafeteria so as not to miss lunch entirely. Alice sat down by her "siblings" just as I walked into the room. The dirty blond one – Jasper, I reminded myself – gave me not so much a smile as a mild glance. I made sure not to look at them again while I ate and talked to Jessica about a party and Angela about _Wuthering Heights_, on which we'd had a pop quiz that morning.

In class I opened my textbook to find the diagrams I forgot to label the day before. I gave it a shot, but only got through two (40%) before the teacher asked us to put our books down so we could do a pop quiz. I didn't exactly ace it, but I thought I got about 70% right. In Gym I tried some of the stretches in the library book while doing my best to dodge the volley ball. At home I cleaned and vacuumed and cooked. Now I could finally read for three and a half days on end.


	3. Weekend 1, pt 1

I appreciate the interest, everyone. :)

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Still Day 5**

I was in the process of figuring out whether to reread _Persuasion_ or _Mansfield Park_ while heating frozen garlic bread in the oven when the phone rang. It was Renée. I felt a little guilty about not having called her earlier.

"Hi Mom."

"Bella, why haven't you called? Are they giving you too much schoolwork? I bet it rains too much to do anything else…"

It was good to hear her voice again.

Apparently Phil had won a baseball game against some local team. I tried to concentrate, but sports talk always had me listening with half an ear. It beat talking about school, though. I loved my mother, but we had widely different interests. She had a lot of half-read relationship books. Mostly she read mystery novels, as well as the odd supernatural romance novel that I took great care to stay away from. She had always encouraged me to read what I liked, though.

"Yes, Mom, I made friends, sort of." The timer went off. "That's my garlic bread. Hold on." I heard her laugh even after I'd put down the phone and walked into the other room. When I camee back and picked up the phone she appeared not to have heeded my "hold on", because she was in the middle of a sentence.

"…always loved garlic. When you were four you ate a raw onion. I hope you only eat it on the weekends, you wouldn't want to be in a classroom full of people with one of you reeking of anything. What are you drinking?"

"Dandelion tea."

"Aw. Like in those novels you like? I thought you were done with that phase."

"I still love Austen, Mom. If it's a phase it's going to be a long one."

We talked for a little longer before we hung up. When I looked at the clock it had been almost forty minutes. I didn't feel like reading about romance right now, so I picked up my Gym notebook. So far all there was was a drawing of two hands clapping and a mindmap with a football in the center and the words I had meant to look up branching out from it. I drew a baseball bat on another page and wrote some of the phrases Renée had used around it.

Charlie had a few "For Dummies" books lying around. It was a long shot, but maybe one of them was about athletics of some kind. I remembered that Renée had some books on yoga and pilates, most of which she had never gotten around to reading. I would be too expensive to mail them, but I made a note to have a look at them when I visited them in Florida, although I wasn't sure when that would be. I tried to look up the baseball and football entries in the single-volume encyclopedia in the house and take notes. When Charlie came home he found me rereading _Wuthering Heights_ again.

"I put your dinner in the fridge. I can reheat it." I got up.

"No, I'll do it."

Fine by me. I relocated to my room to read my novel. It went a little slower than usual since I was making margin notes. By the time I went to sleep wondering if Mr. Lockwood would have been a better match for Cathy than Linton, I was too tired to hear the scraping on the window.


	4. Weekend 1, pt 2

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Day 6 & 7**

The next morning it was sunny, but cold. The trees outside were sparkling with frost. It was so beautiful I momentarily forgot all about missing Arizona. I resolved not to do any schoolwork over the weekend (or almost none) and found my copy of _Jane Eyre_. I thought about sitting in the back yard, on the front porch, tried to think of somewhere I could sit an read in the sun without feeling the cold. My truck ended up being the logical answer; but by the time Jane left Lowood (maybe the Brontës had an affinity for that kind of name?) I felt like going for a walk instead.

It was funny: in Phoenix it had been too sunny to walk outside, and here it was often too rainy. The sun had melted a lot of the ice while I was reading in the car. The place was almost back to its usual dripping self. I was hungry, so I went inside and ate the leftover garlic bread, all the while considering whether driving to Seattle would be worth the trouble and the gas money. In the end I called Jessica, who suggested going to Port Angeles instead. It was closer, and we could bring Angela, who would never be allowed to go as far as Seattle. We took Jessica's car. It was an old, white Mercury, not as sturdy as my old Chevrolet, but it probably got better gas mileage.

_Oh my god_, I thought to myself. Was I starting to care about cars?

Angela was happy to take the back seat. Book talk would likely bore Jessica, but she told me that she had been reading _The Tempest_ – not a play we were likely to get assigned, at least not this semester – and I mentioned that Jane Eyre's praise of _Marmion_ had made me want to read it, although I usually wasn't into epic poems about wars.

Jessica interrupted and wanted to talk about some fashion designer. If I had remembered to bring a notebook I would have made a note to take an interest in fashion for the sake of a well-rounded education. I imagined putting the idea in my bedroom, hoping it would remind me when I returned there.

"Where do we want to go?" asked Jessica when we reached the city limit.

"Is there a library here? One that's open on Saturdays?"

"There's one two or three streets that way, but I don't know if it's open," said Angela, pointing.

"I thought we were gonna buy prom dresses," said Jessica.

"I don't think I'm going to the prom."

"Why not?" Like that was the most bewildering thing I could have said.

"Come on, Jess. You've seen her play volley ball," Angela said. "Do you really want her to try her hand at dancing?"

"I guess not. We'll see you later?"

"Sure."

The library wasn't hard to find, but it was only open for one more hour by the time I got there. With time to browse I went straight for the fiction shelves. I found a worn copy of _Gone With the Wind_, a book I had long been meaning to read but kept putting it off because the main character seemed pretty unpleasant. There was a newer-looking copy of a modern novel, the stilletto on the cover reminding me of my decision to read up on fashion. Lastly I found a thin book with no cover art. My newly Spanish-thinking brain at first thought it was about emeralds, but the author was Victor Hugo. I checked out all three, put them in a plastic bag, and went to look for the dress shop Jessica and Angela had gone to.

I was reasonably sure I had gone the right way, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because after 30 minutes of walking I had no idea where I was, and it was getting dark. And with the dark, cold. My hoodie and jeans couldn't compete with the sudden drop in temperatures near the coast. I walked on for a few minutes, shifting the plastic bag from one hand to the other. I saw a man at a street corner, smoking a cigarette. I approached him to ask where I was, but he gave me a look that made me cross the street to get away from him. I walked on as fast as I dared on the sometimes-icy sidewalk, not daring to look behind me. Thinking I heard steps behind me I rounded a corner. I thought I heard dramatic music.

It came from a car parked further down the street. Still feeling like I was being followed, I walked towards it. It was a red BMW. The two girls inside looked familiar.

"Alice?" I whispered.

I started to walk towards the car. Then, emboldened, I spun on my heel. The man was a few yards behind me, just as I had feared.

I scowled at him. He raised his eyebrows at me.

"Stop following me!" I told him in a strict tone, as though I wasn't afraid, but offended.

He gave me a surprised look, then slunk away.

I turned toward the car again. The two sisters had seen me. They turned off _Ride of the Valkyries_ and Alice stepped out of the car.

I was glad they had been there. That might not have worked without witnesses.

"Hi," I said uncertainly, looking at Alice.

"Hello," she replied brigtly, getting out of the car.

"What are you doing here?"

"Buying prom dresses." Rosalie nodded to the clothes bags in the back seat.

"Were you with Jessica Stanley and Angela Weber? I saw them go into a restaurant like an hour ago."

"Yeah, we can take you."

I thanked them and got in the backseat.

"What's in the bag?" Alice asked as Rosalie started the engine.

"Library books." I took one up to show her.

"You like Hugo?"

"I haven't really read that much by him yet. This is my first one." Alice handed it back and Rosalie pulled into an empty parking space in front of a restaurant. The sign read _La Bella Italia_. My stomach growled.

Just as I got out of the car, Jessica and Angela came out of the restaurant. Of course they had eaten already. I told them it was fine, but my stomach wouldn't shut up, so it sounded disingenuous at best.

"It's okay. We'll take Bella to dinner," said Alice, exiting the car.

"Just leave the books, we'll take you home after," said Rosalie, turning the engine off and putting on her sunglasses before stepping out of the car.

The other two seemed uncertain how to respond, but I assured them it was fine. I'd see them at school on Monday. They left.

* * *

Inside the restaurant Rosalie asked for a booth, and the maître d' looked like he felt he couldn't deny her that. The two sister shoveled onto one bench while I got the other to myself. They looked much happier together than I'd ever seen them in school. Alice was grinning.

"You go ahead and order. We ate earlier."

"It's on us, of course."

They looked at each other and laughed like it was some kind of inside joke.

I ordered ravioli, lacking the energy to study the entire menu in-depth.

"You don't want anything with garlic?" Alice's eyes twinkled.

"No thanks," I said. I couldn't muster up the interest to ask. The waitress put a glass of Coke in front of me. I took a sip.

"I should call Charlie," I said. "I only left a note. Do you think I can borrow a phone?"

Rosalie was handing me her nokia before I had finished speaking. I dialled the number, left a voice message, and returned my attention to my two schoolmates who certainly couldn't have an agenda with all this.

"How's your brother?" I said, handing back the cell.

"Which one?"

"…Edward."

I wasn't going to say "the one neither of you is dating" to the people paying for my food. I reached for a breadstick, my stomach still growling.

"He's fine," Alice said at the same time Rosalie said "he's ill". Then exchanged a quick glance. Really quick. I must be even more tired than I thought.

"He's been sick, but he's probably back in school on Monday or Tuesday," Alice said by way of explanation.

"Okay."

"How do you like Forks?" "And Washington?" They seemed very interested. I looked from one to the other.

"It's… I mean…" Why not be honest. "I kinda preferred the relentless sunlight and suffocating heat in Arizona."

"Doesn't sound that way," Alice pointed out.

The waitress put my pasta in front of me.

"It feels like I'm much closer to Canada than Mexico now," I tried, hoping it made more sense.

"Does it also feel like you live near the coast as opposed to far away from it?" said Rosalie drily. I nodded.

"It's like right there." I jabbed my thumb to my left.

"Actually it's right there," said Rosalie, pointing to her own left.

"Was school there better?" Alice asked, changing the subject while staying on topic.

"It was… more structured. It's freer here."

"Silver lining." Alice smiled.

"I guess you can say that." I mumbled between mouthfuls, hungrier than I had thought.

"What about the Wuthering Heights essay? We heard about it from Angela," Alice clarified when I gave her a quizzical look.

"Turned it in yesterday, just on time." I rediscovered the breadsticks, grabbing one just as I saw the sisters exchanging glances again. "I compared it to Northanger Abbey, just because they both have Catherines and Isabellas and I thought it was funny."

"When Mason says 'next Friday', he usually means the one after," Rosalie said.

"Oh, well." I shrugged. It wasn't such a big deal. Mr. Mason would have said so if it was. I just hoped it wouldn't brand me as some teacher's pet.

"You like Margaret Mitchell?"

"I don't know. Haven't read her before."

"But Austen?"

"I love Austen!" Okay, this was weird. Was Alice trying to bond with me?

"Read all her works?"

I shook my head. "Only her major works. Not like, the stuff she wrote for kids, or her letters or anything."

"You know French?" interjected Rosalie. "The Hugo book looked like it was in French," she explained when I looked at her.

"Not _well_. Took it in middle school." I had only read _The Little Prince_ in French before, and that was four years ago, but I should be able to manage a short play.

I finished my food. My new acquaintances paid. In the car, Alice revealed that she had snuck out breadsticks for me. They were colder in the middle, which I attributed to Alice holding them by the ends. A little unusual, but it was thoughtful of her.

Rosalie dropped me off in front of Charlie's house. I said good-bye and thanked them profusely for the food and the ride. When I entered the house I found Charlie sitting up. He didn't make a fuss, though. I knew he hated it when I acted surprised to find that he cared. I went to bed.

**Sunday**

I slept in. Saturday had been exhausting. When I got up, to warm up my brain, I grabbed the bag of library books and sat down in the chair by the window. It was ice cold. I jumped up and wrapped a blanket around me and sat down again.

I tried _The Devil Wears Prada_ first. After one chapter I decided I could read _Gone With The Wind_ to procrastinate on it. After a few chapters of that I figured I'd rather read the play _La Esmeralda_ instead. That worked out, with the French not being too complicated since most of it was dialogue, most of it between a homeless person, a soldier, a social outcast, and a mob. Once I'd finished that I went to the kitchen to make tea.

_Now_ I was ready for _Gone With The Wind_.


	5. First Meeting

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions. :)

* * *

**Monday**

Having finished nearly half the book, I decided to bring the other novel to school. I had decided to write essays on all three novels, even if I wasn't going to turn them in. Practice essays could be useful. When I got to English, Mr. Banner only returned my essay, so apparently Alice and Rosalie had been right. I blushed, hoping no one would notice, while another part of my brain chastised myself for caring so much what others would think.

I looked it over. There were a few red lines and a circled B+ on it. Yes, practice essays would be good.

In Government I noted down the idea of writing practice essays in other subjects, too. In Trig, someone asked rather hypothetically if there was any real-life use for the subject, and I mentioned to Eric that I had found I spilled less rice if I made the pouring angle steeper. It made a lot of people stare at us, but Eric just asked if that didn't depend on what quadrant I thought I was pouring from. I replied that I didn't think so.

Come Spanish, I found I could hardly wait for Biology, even though it meant that Gym was right around the corner. I wrote the shortest book report I'd ever written, in Spanish, and gave it to Mrs. Goff. Jessica looked mildly impressed.

"Some of these words are Spanglish," Mrs. Goff told me a few minutes later.

At lunch I tried to concentrate on the conversation – Mike was very excited about a Star Wars movie and Angela was more interested in the re-inauguration of the president – but my attention kept drifting over to the Cullen table.

It was empty.

That is, it started out as empty, and when people realized it was available they started sitting down there. I hoped it wasn't something I had said.

Tyler wanted to read my book report. That was a new one. I handed it to him, a few sentences in Spanish about a play.

"Jasper had to go home," Jessica whispered when she saw where I was looking.

"Why?"

Jessica shrugged. "I guess he's ill?"

"Ill how?" I was suddenly worried. Alice hadn't mentioned anything about anyone besides Edward being ill. Never mentioned it being contagious. Perhaps she had it, too. And maybe I did, and if it transmitted before symptoms showed up, everyone at the table could have it.

I shook myself. That was just paranoid.

"None of the others are there?" Jessica shook her head. "Alice Cullen went with him. You know, they're…°

"Yeah, I know. They're _together_." I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Now that the novelty had worn off, and I had met her, I felt I couldn't judge her for liking her… uncle's wife's nephew, or whatever he was.

"They must be tight-knit for all to go home, just because one felt sick."

"Edward's over there," Angela piped up, nodding towards a slightly different table. No, wait. At the parking lot. He was sitting there with a blonde. They seemed to be when I saw the huge guy in the backseat did I realize it was Rosalie – and her boyfriend-slash-already-family-member. They must have taken the others home.

I looked down at my home-made rye tomato sandwich. I didn't like the pang I'd felt before I'd identified Rosalie as the blonde woman in the car with Edward.

On the way to Biology, Tyler caught my sleeve (annoying) to hand me back my miniature essay, pointing out that "la protagoniste est une danceur" didn't look very Spanish. "Dammit," I whispered. I had to write more essays. "Thank you, Tyler." I hurried off in the direction I'd been going.

The table was empty when I got there, and my heart sank a little, but I sat down and opened my textbook. I had forgotten about the post-it diagrams, and one was falling out. I was replicating it on a new one when I felt someone pull out the chair next to me.

"Hello," said the smoothest voice I had ever heard.

I looked at him, and the moment our eyes locked, my breath caught.

His eyes were friendly, hazel – but without any brown – diametrically (180˚) opposite from the black – _all_ brown – and hostile glare from last week.

His biological sister had had a very similar eye color, although at the time I had assumed the light and my own fatigue were playing tricks on me.

He arched an eyebrow, and I remembered that I hadn't responded to his greeting.

"Hello," I murmured.

He frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"No." I shook my head, still reeling from the shock of his complete turnaround. Was it because I'd eaten dinner with his sisters? Because that had seemed like their idea, to me, and not like some socially savvy move on my part.

"It's just… I'm trying to learn all these diagrams, and they keep falling out…" I gesticulated wildly at my book with crumpled post-its.

"Hey, you two. Wanna identify mushroom spores?" Mr. Something said, placing a set of microscope slides in front of us and moving on without waiting for an answer to put slides on other desks.

I opened my notebook. Of course. Mr. Banner. Banner - Biology. Should have been easy to remember. Edward went to fetch us a microscope.

The exercise took us about seven minutes, with both of us checking the other's work. After that there was nothing to do but awkwardly conversing.

"So, you moved here from Phoenix?" Edward volunteered to begin.

"And you from Alaska?" I reciprocated. He glanced at me.

"Why would you move here? Were you tired of all the sun?"

"Were you tired of all the… grizzly bears?" I was starting to wonder if he sounded genuinely interested out of actual interest instead of politeness.

"Bella." He sounded exasperated. I blinked, stifling at the last moment the reflex to correct his addressing me as 'Isabella'.

"Yes?" It was all I could think to say on such short notice.

"Why did you leave Phoenix?" It sounded important to him. "You clearly hate it here."

I had no idea it was that obvious. Maybe his sisters had noticed and ratted me out.

"I don't _hate_ it here. Just the weather."

He just looked at me, apparently waiting for me to continue. When I didn't, he said:

"You like to read, though."

"Oh, of course, who doesn't," I said without sarcasm. "I finished my Biology book last week." I left out the information that I had already studied much of the material in Phoenix, where the weather was nice.

Dammit. Now that I was found out I couldn't stop thinking about it.

"Cat's out of the bag," I mumbled.

"That's a Grimm's fairy tale, right?"

"I can't live in Phoenix. My mother lives in Florida."

"Phoenixes are interesting animals," Edward interjected. "And Florida is named for flowers, I believe."

I looked at him, wondering if he'd realized he'd stepped onto a minefield and was trying to get out. I noticed that he was impossibly pale.

"Are you part Finnish?" The words just fell out of my mouth. _Oh my god, Bella, _whispered a scandalized voice inside my head_. You can't just _ask_ people whether they're Finnish!_

He smiled. "No."

"Okay." I looked down, too embarassed to maintain eye contact, let alone pursue the line of questioning that occured to me. I chose to look at my pile of post-its instead.

"You seem like a diligent student. You like Biology?" Friendly now

"Not really. English is more my thing." I smiled at him. "But you never know when you'll have use for knowledge you don't particularly care for."

He thought about this.

"Wanna study later?"

"What? No! No, I can't," I said hurriedly. "I'm going to Angela's."

Edward looked mildly disappointed but also approving.

"And what will you study with Angela?"

"_The Tempest_." I nodded and swallowed, past controlling my microexpressions.

"So about weather," he smiled.

Class ended. Gym class had never felt so light. By the time I got to Angela's I had recovered a little. We read the play and agreed to meet again the next day to discuss it. By the time I went to bed I couldn't believe how much I was looking forward to Biology – even more than English.


	6. Blood type 1

Twilight still belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Thank you for the feedback, everyone. I really appreciate it. :)

* * *

**Tuesday**

The person who sat next to me in English was not in school that day, so Angela sat next to me after making sure her usual neighbor had no real need for her. There was a pop quiz on Wuthering Heights, which I finished in ten minutes, and I tried to use the remaining time to write a mini-essay about that very book. Angela also finished quickly. She kept glancing at my essay and seemed to find it hilarious, although personally I didn't think interpreting the Kate Bush song as narrated by a zombie was so far-fetched.

Government, Trig, and Spanish also had pop-quizzes, none of which I finished in ten minutes. I spent lunch rereading the Biology chapter we were on, thinking I was catching on. My skimming was only interrupted by brief glances toward the now full Cullen table. The talk around the table was lively, probably because I wasn't trying to participate. At one point Angela laughed and Jessica elbowed me in the ribs, so I spoke up:

"Just because they're undead doesn't mean they can't have an equally filfilling romance!" And immediately turned my attention back to the section on mitochindria.

To my bitter disappointment, Edward was missing in Biology. But just as I started wondering if it was something I had said, reprimanding myself for being so self-absorbed as to think people skipped school because of me, _and_ remembering that the exact same thing had happened last week, I found out why he'd decided to stay out of this one.

It was blood test day.

I groaned, wishing we could just look at spores every time. Mr. Banner assured me that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to, that I could ask to look at someone else's blood cells – and then he shouted so the whole class could hear him if anyone wanted to share their blood samples with me – by which time several people had already pricked their fingers and the smell wafted through the air in the room.

"I think I'm going to—" I was cut off by the sense of falling.

When I came to, likely no more than half a second later, Mike was volunteering to take me to the nurse's office. _Oh, right, Mike's in this class._ I hoped I hadn't spoken that thought aloud.

We got as far as the parking lot, where Mike almost dropped me, not that I was terribly cooperative. He lifted my arm from around his neck and lowered me to the ground, presumably trying not to bang my head on the asphalt.

"What are you doing?"

Okay, that had to be the prettiest voice I'd ever heard, so I was certain I had to be hallucinating.

"…ridiculous. She didn't even prick her finger."

I didn't? That was good news.

"I'll take her from here."

I felt my body being lifted off the ground, vaguely hoping this wasn't some spiritual experience like I had read about in some of Renée's books. That would be freaky. Not to mention how cold it was.

"Up or down?" I mumbled.

"Hm?"

"Are we going up or down!" I felt a little annoyed. I couldn't remember which one was cold, but apparently whoever was taking me there couldn't either.

"We're going to the nurse's office."

I felt us going through a door and the person put me down in a seated position. I blinked at the lights. A doctor's office floated into view.

"What happened?" My voice sounded less worried than I felt.

"You saw blood and fainted," Edward said, struggling to hold back a smile.

"God, you're tense." I rubbed my back where it had been resting on his arm.

The nurse said some friendly-sounding things while smiling. I wasn't in my head enough to make out the words, but I drank the water that was offered. Edward followed me to my car, where I had resolved to sit until Gym.

"Can I sit in the passenger seat? I don't want to leave you to faint again."

"Sure. It's open." I pointed to the passenger door, as if he wasn't sure which dooe to use to end up next to me. I was too tired to feel embarassed about it.

"You leave your car unlocked?" he said as he entered on that side.

"I'd like to see someone hotwire this baby." I patted my dashboard a little too hard and shook my fingers.

He smiled. "You read this?" He had found the library copy of _Gone With the Wind_ that I'd left in the backseat.

"Don't judge," I groaned. "I hear they're a type of people I'll have to deal with in life."

A few moments passed in silence. My head was beginning to clear.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." I wasn't sure what he meant, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to talk about it.

"Do you have plans with Angela tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "Just for today."

"Would it be okay it… you had plans with me tomorrow?"

I looked at him. "Okay."

Glancing at the clock, I realized Gym class was about to start. We got out and started walking.

"You really should lock your car."

"Maybe if you keep saying that where everyone can hear it." I smiled at him to make it sound less crass.

"Too bad you didn't get your blood typed," said Mike, catching up with us.

"It's O-neg," I reassured him. "Fell off my bike a few years ago and found out."

Edward left us for whatever class _he_ had after Biology. In Gym coach Clapp had exchanged the volleyball net for blue mats, on which we were supposed to take sit-ups. To make it more fun, or just because he liked senseless competition, coach Clapp said it was girls versus boys.

"Girls versus boys what?" I asked Jessica, who had ended up next to me. She shrugged.

I mamaged more sit-ups than I had expected, but not enough to present a threat to the boys – or the girls for that matter. When Clapp came over to stand by my mat and watch me in the hopes it would inspire me, I told him that the purpose of this class could not possibly be to injure students just for a grade, and then he left me alone until push-ups.

When I ran out of exercise steam this time, I did some of the stretches from that book I hadn't returned yet. Clapp seemed to approve.

When I arrived at Angela's, she told me Jessica had asked her to ask me how I stayed "so thin" despite hating gym. I shrugged. "I guess I do a lot of housework."

I could tell from her expression that she wasn't going to win any points with Jessica when relaying this information, so I quickly added: "And sometimes I go for walks while I read. Inside the house. Like in Pride and Prejudice."

Angela nodded, seemingly letting the subject go. I held up my copy of _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_. "Shall we?"

Angela had a single book of _The Tempest_, in which every other page contained explanations and footnotes of the main text. She took the approach of reading it very thoroughly once, memorizing vocabulary words as she went. I thought it would have been nice to have the sort of memory where you could read a book once and ever after only need to reference your memory of it.

I was a huge rereader myself. The previous day I read the play through twice. I considered it acceptable with books to read for school (even though Angela said we might not get it assigned until senior year) just to get familiar with the stuff. I had written a brief summary in my notebook.

"How do you read?" Angela asked me during a break.

"I skim—"

"Oh."

"—first."

We stared at each other for a moment. She had sounded disappointed. I felt guilty for a minute, then shrugged internally. Shakespeare was fun, but he was easier to follow if I skimmed each page before I read it. After making a comparison map of Ariel from the play and Ariel from the Disney movie, I said goodbye to Angela and went home.


	7. First Study Sesh

Twilight still belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Wednesday**

The schoolday was a bit of a blur. I was looking forward to studying with Edward more than I expected. It was bright outside, and I was thinking about how Jane Eyre seemed to control the weather with her moods when I made a disheartening discovery: the Cullens were absent from school. Jessica noticed my dejection and informed me that they often went camping when the weather was nice.

I hoped they would be back in time for our study date. If not I'd just have to read on my own. Angela had made plans to study with Tyler, and I was sure I didn't want to be there when they got to the "studying" part.

I got home, and almost the moment I dropped my bag on the floor the bell rang. It was Edward, with textbooks.

My smile felt wider than usual. I let him in.

"Charlie doesn't want us studying in my room, but I don't think I can study in the living room," I told him.

"That's okay. We can relocate before he gets home."

Edward's eyes were a paler yellow than yesterday. He looked happy.

"What do you wamt to study?"

"We only have Biology together."

"Sure," he laughed, "but we both take Spanish and English, just at different times."

I picked up my notebooks from those classes, too, just in case. "But first, Biology."

Edward seemed to have no problems with the subject that would require a study partner. I tried not to flatter myself that was only here because he liked me. That was the sort of thing that happened in Austen novels, not in real life. Instead, I tried to concentrate on cell anatomy. I told Edward about my difficulties with diagrams.

"Have you tried loci? You know, putting associations in your place memories."

"Yeah." I nodded. I had once used it to cram all the elements of the periodic table into our house in Paradise Valley. Still couldn't forget the image of Einstein, Berkeley, and Curie throwing a party in my bedroom together with Gregor Mendel and Laurence Fishburn. "But it doesn't help to just remember the names if I don't remember where on the diagram they belong."

"Well, why don't you use the pictures as loci?"

I hadn't thought of that. "Might get a bit crowded," I muttered, looking at a picture of a cross-section of a human cell.

"You can always try. I'm sure some will become redundant as you go."

"Worth a shot," I shrugged.

Just as I was imagining a vacuum cleaner on the drawing of a vacuole, hoping it would do the trick, Edward said: "Your father will probably be home soon."

We relocated to the kitchen, and almost the moment we sat down, I heard the front door open. Pretty impressive timing on Edward's part.

"We're in here!" Edward shouted when I showed no signs of doing so. "So, tomorrow?" he said to me, gathering his books. "Can't. Promised Jess." "How about…" "Saturday?" I interjected, regretting it immediately when I saw a flash of disappointment cross his face. "I just want a day of the week to myself," I explained. He nodded. Charlie was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows raised.

"I'm just gonna follow Edward out," I told him.

"Don't take too long," Charlie said good-naturedly.

"I'll pick you up Saturday, then?" Edward said when the door closed behind us.

"No, I'll drive." I looked around for a silver car.

"It's a few hundred yards into a forest."

"I have a truck." I smiled.

"But not a Land Rover." I could hear the smile in his voice. The only Volvo in sight was lime green.

"My point is," I said as I walked to the edge of the sidewalk, "that anything your Volvo can do my truck can do better."

I watched me for a few more seconds before he said, "I actually parked it down the road. Wasn't sure exactly where you lived." He assured me I could go inside, and in fact should before I caught a cold. Steeling myself for some version of "the talk" with Charlie, I followed his suggestion, feeling only a small pang of sadness that he was leaving.


	8. First Visit

Stephenie Meyer owns the rights to Twilight.

* * *

**Saturday**

Thursday I had spent the afternoon with Jessica studying Spanish, and Friday I had done homework in the living room where Charlie was watching baseball. I tried to keep two notebooks going, but in the end I gave up and made sports notes under my diagram of the American judiciary system. Turning to another page I made two columns and wrote what I remembered about President Kennedy in one and what I could remember about baseball in the other.

And now I had convinced Charlie to let me spend the day at the Cullens'. Just a few hours, I had promised. Just studying. I climbed out of my car in front of the huge house, pulling my book bag with me. Just as I lifted my hand to ring the bell, the door flew open, revealing Alice. She looked thrilled.

"How was studying with Jessica?" asked Edward, who stood behind her, motioning for me to come inside.

"It was all right. She lent me a comicbook," I replied. He lifted his eyebrows. "In Spanish. She said she bought it in Mexico last summer," I clarified.

"That sounds lovely," said a petite brunette coming out of what seemed to be the kitchen, "What kind?"

"Hombre Ara… Spiderman." I corrected myself quickly.

"That sounds wonderful. I'm Esme." She took my hands in hers, beaming like I was the first spark of hope she had seen in a long time. "I'm sorry, I just got food from the freezer," she said before I could remark that her hands were cold.

"We are very happy to see you, Bella," said a blond man I hadn't seen before. That must be their foster dad. "We shall leave you alone to study, now." He and his wife headed to another room.

The next floor was a hallway with three doors on each wall that wasn't didn't contain a window. Edward explained to me that the middle doors were to bathrooms, with the boys living in the rooms with the glass wall and the girls in the rooms facing the front yard. It was a simple enough layout for my spacial difficulties. No getting lost in this house. I was about to ask about the third floor (where I assumed the remaining three family members lived) when Alice showed up. She declared that she would show me her room in too excited a voice to refuse.

I half expected there to be pink wallpaper and pony posters. I misjudged her. The walls were light purple, the couch a darker purple, there was a single bookcase, a few photos of Jasper, no sign of the Backstreet Boys, and on the window sill there were crystalline butterflies.

"What books do you have?" I asked on pure reflex and walked over to the bookcase.

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," Allice said as she seized my arm in an oddly firm grip and hauled me away from it. I managed to glimpse the title "Quantum Physics for Dummies" before we were by the wardrobe with the doors flung open. Behind all the fashionable clothes and shoes I glimpsed more fashionable clothes and shoes. I thought I understood why Lauren and Jessica spent so much time reading about it. A lot of it was very pretty although it didn't look particularly comfortable to wear.

Alice ignored all of it and retrieved a small package from a shoe that I hoped was as brand new as it looked. "For you."

It took me a moment. "For me?" I took it and unwrapped it.

It was a handheld microscope.

"Oh my gosh! Thank you, Alice!" Forgotten were the clothes and the fashion. I tried to hug her but she dodged me. "You are most welcome, Bella!" She beamed in such a way that I could believe she wasn't offended by my impulsive jump-scare hug.

"But how…" How _did_ she know I wanted one? I didn't know it myself until recently.

"Edward is waiting for you." He was. He was standing outside looking for all the world like he hadn't been listening.

"My turn." He was smiling. I couldn't help but smile back. When he lead the way upstairs, I looked at the wall we passed through my microscope. It looked incredible.

Edward's room looked like a small library. Three walls were covered in bookshelves, with the fourth one being made of glass so I could see how it might be hard to fill it with books. Edward himself smiled at my reaction.

"You like it?"  
"I love it."

He led me to the Classics section (the entire right-hand wall). I started running my fingers over the spines. I had never wanted to read anything so much. There was Alexandre Dumas in the original French, Cervantes in Spanish… Some of these even looked like first editions, or at least reprints of first editions. After I had gathered a small pile of books in my arms Edward gently walked me to the sofa. "I think you need to breathe."

I obediently took a deep breath and shook myself. It was hard to take my eyes off the beautiful covers and the old-fashioned script.

"Let's talk."

"Okay."

Edward was holding my new microscope. I hadn't noticed I put it down.

"Stop me if you've heard this one before."

"Okay," I repeated.

"What do you want to major in?"

Tough one. "Everything."

He laughed.

"But to start with?"

"Literature." I was beginning to come to my senses.

"What nationality? Wait, let me guess…"  
"All of them."

He laughed again. I smiled.

"What about you?" I said just as he said "What about minor?" We stared at each other for a moment.

"Literature sounds cool."

"Maybe biology," I heard myself say. "You like biology? I had the impression you were bored." He handed me my new microscope. "It's boring going through stuff I've already done." His table looked like abstract art through the lens. He changed the subject.

"Did you bring homework?"

"Let's do homework to _these_." I gestured toward the pile of books I had brought.

* * *

When I pulled up in my driveway I had half a notebook's worth of essay drafts and phrase maps in my passenger seat. Edward had helped me with the Spanish and lent me his battered copy of _El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha_. He had been unable to tell me whether it meant "Sir Turkey Vulture of the English Channel".

He read fast, I would give him that. I tried to bring up Magliabechi and John Stuart Mill to get him to tell me about it, but he had just smiled. I would have to find a way to ask him about it later.

I thought I fell asleep reading Don Quijote, but when I woke the next day it was on my bedside table.


	9. First Accident

Twirights belong to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Monday**

I spent the Sunday reading and the reading breaks on cleaning. The temperature had dropped, so it wasn't particularly tempting to step outside. Besides, there were a lot of things in the house I hadn't really _looked_ at before, at least not through a microscope. I googled "jaundice", but all the cases where about the white of the eye going yellow, not the iris.

When Monday came, it was just freezing outside. The ice crystals on my window were pretty, but that was the only positive thing about it. I drove to school very carefully, and still slid a few inches when I stepping out of the car. I petted my car, feeling like I should compliment it on keeping itself on the road, when I spotted silver glinting ain the corner of my eye. Stepping into the parking lot to get a better view, I realized that all the wheels had thin metal chains around them. My eyes welled up.

_Charlie_…

I heard a thin, high pitched whine to my right, and realized moments before the car hit me that I shouldn't have been sitting down in the parking lot.

Or did it hit me? I _was_ lying on the ground all of a sudden. But the angle was all wrong; I should have been thrown to the side, not forward. My surroundings flailed around. After a long moment of staring at a patch of frozen asphalt my neck began to hurt, and I realized I had been thrown. I thought I was caught between steel beams and started to panic, when I heard a familiar, velvety voice. I couldn't make out the words.

"What?"

"You're okay," Edward told me.

That was good to hear. I was worried there for a second.

The ground was cold, and the light was really bright. I got turned onto my back, and vaguely registered that the car that had almost hit me probably hadn't. Time seemed to stretch. At some point I felt my body getting strapped down, and then the world started to move, and before I couldn't tell myself what was happening I was in the back of an ambulance. Edward sat next to me, not holding my hand. _Well, I guess he doesn't want to give anyone the impression that he's my boyfriend_, I thought. It didn't even hurt right then.

"How do you feel?" he mouthed. I heard his voice a second after, but it was a blur.

"My brain isn't speaking to me," I heard my voice say.

I must have drifted off, because the next time it occured to me to think I was in a hospital. The light was unmistakeable. I knew I had a concussion when the doctor who stepped into my room was awfully bright. Then another person stepped through the curtain, and I realized it had to be a trick of the light, because Charlie was not shiny at all. The pale doctor in the very white clothes who I was avoiding looking at said something to Charlie, and Charlie grumbled something back. A blonde woman walked past the opening in the curtain and stood in front of someone just out of sight – Edward, I realized. All I could make out from her angry whispers was "in front of people".

Edward grabbed her shoulders and moved her out of my line of sight. I was grateful. She was as pale as her father – it only occured to me that the pale doctor was Dr. Carlisle Cullen after I had thought that. Maybe it was genetic issue. I closed my eyes.

Charlie drove me home. I asked him to go get my car from the parking lot at school but he told me Edward's sister Alice had taken it home and that I'd just missed it standing in the driveway. He got me a water bottle and had to get back to work.

I spent the rest of the day in bed, keeping my room dark, drinking water and trying not to doze off. By the time Charlie came home I had pretty much failed at that. He shook me to see if I was still alive, and I assured him I was. He made me drink more water, promised to find some audiobooks he felt sure he still had, and turned off the lights before he left.

I fell asleep and dreamed that the window in the far corner of my room was open, but that when I got up to shut it some kind of gholem or statue wrestled me back to bed.


	10. First sick leave

Told you I wasn't any good at writing romance. I'm the same way with action scenes.  
Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

* * *

**Tuesday & Wednesday**

I felt so much better in the morning that I almost convinced Charlie to let me go to school, but stumbled over my feet on my way to the kitchen.

"You are not driving a car like that," he declared. I would have objected that this was how I usually walked, but I felt dizzy.

After he left for work I tried to read, but couldn't. Probably a good thing I'd stayed home. I bitterly regretted not voice recording my notes in case of times like these. The only audio book I had was a Mandarin CD-set of Wuthering Heights which Renée had bought me on a holiday she'd spent with Phil in Taiwan. I wasn't sure I was up for learning Mandarin just now, but put it on anyway. I wasn't sure how I felt about sleep learning, but I had nothing better to do. That is, until it occured to me that there was one subject I could work on without reading: Gym.

Getting into my gym clothes, I noticed faint green marks on my arms. I remembered the dream, and my faith in sleep learning went up a notch. If the body could do that just because it thought it should, why would it ever stop listening?

Okay, I admitted to myself. That was not a very good syllogism. But it _could_ happen.

I did some yoga to the sound of Chinese before I crawled back into bed and fell asleep. I woke up to Charlie entering my room to leave homework on my desk. "Jessica Stanley and the other girl brought it."

"Angela?"

"No."

I sat up. The Mandarin voice kept talking.

"Lauren?"

"Maybe. Can I get you anything? Water?"

"Thank you, Dad. I'm fine." I pointed at the stash of water bottles on the floor.

"Can I open a window?"

"Sure."

He seemed a bit weirded out, too, when the window wasn't jammed shut. So he hadn't opened it before I came from Phoenix, then. I saw him shrug it off, presumably thinking I had opened it enough times to make it open smoothly.

"Anything else?"

"Just sleep, I think."

"That the radio?"

"Leave it on."

* * *

When I woke up it was one thirty, and my first thought was that I'd overslept and was late for school. I stumbled out of bed, the realized it was quiet, except for the CD that was on low volume. I had a feeling like I'd just been reading a Stephen King novel, a show of bravery I'd only tried once in my life. I was afraid to turn around to check if it was dark out, terrified of discovering a mad clown or an angry car behind me.

_If that's what's behind you, you really ought to know_, a voice in my head said.

Another, saner-sounding voice said, _seeing it won't help as much as running away._

Dad's voice interjected, _running invites chasing; walk fast instead._

I obeyed the last voice, and found myself in the kitchen with no real memory of going downstairs. I poured myself a glass of milk and sat down before I noticed I was shaking. Resisting the urge to wake Charlie, I drank my milk and ended up falling asleep on the sofa reading a sports magazine. I halfway woke when Charlie carried me upstairs.

* * *

Alice came by after school while Charlie was still at work, bearing homework and a cardboard box. I realized that she had a _very_ high-pitched voice.

"You're listening to Wuthering Heights?" she asked. I nodded. I had changed to the second cd after the first one started skipping.

"Wait… how did you know?" Alice gave me a guilty look, then seemed to have an epiphany.

"I saw the cover." She pointed at the nightstand.

Not wanting to admit you know Chinese just seemed so unusual I let it go.

"You look much better. We had a popquiz in Biology today. I remember some of the questions if you want to try." She sounded happy.

"Sure."

Twelve questions later, most of which I answered to her satisfaction, I was starting to suspect she had memorize the test just so we would have something to talk about.

"What's in the box?" I finally asked.

"Oh, I found it on your porch," she replied with the air of someone who had not forgotten to tell me about it at all.

It turned out to be my old notebooks. I had asked Renée to send them, but I hadn't expected them for another month. Alice was impressed.

"You kept notebooks your entire academic existence?" She dug through them. They had grade and subject on the cover, and handwriting of decreasing stability the farther back it got.

"Aw, you were memorizing State capitals in this adorable handwriting! And… the interstate highway system?"

"Renée and I used to go on road trips." I tried to not feel defensive.

"I-5?" Her eyes glittered challengingly.

"Um… British Columbia to the Mexican border."

"States?"

"Washington, Oregon, California."

Alice laughed.

"But then there's E-roads."

"So?"

"They're in Europe."

It was getting very hard not to feel defensive, but she moved on to another subject.

"Why'd you write the lists so many times?" She held out the pages that looked like they'd been folded backwards a few times.

"I was testing myself."

Alice but the notebooks back in the box.

"Edward misses you," she declared blithely.

"He told you to say that?"

"No, he told me _not_ to say that." Alice beamed. Before I could think about the implications of that, she suggested that she quiz me in Government from the textbook, which she did until Charlie came home.


End file.
